Is a traffic jam the way to win hearts and minds?

The Service Employees International Union obviously believes it is. This afternoon a few hundred of its members will bring much of Century City to a halt as they protest the firing of 16 janitors at 2000 Avenue of the Stars. Their convenient target is JP Morgan Chase, which owns the chi-chi building and will no doubt be vilified as the fat-cat recipient of federal bailout dollars (never mind that JPM never asked for the $25 billion and has repaid the government, with interest). That's right, the poor defenseless janitors up against those SOB bankers.

But in fact the janitors work for ABM Industries, which is a large, publicly held company that services commercial buildings (parking, security, engineering, and janitorial). ABM is not exactly a sexy company, but it's a well-operated one, with higher earnings for 14 of the last 16 years. It also has 91,000 full-time employees, and hirings and firings go on all the time and for all kinds of reasons. I'm sure that like all companies, it doesn't always do the right thing (the EEOC filed a lawsuit last year charging that supervisors at the company discriminated against Latino janitors). But the notion that it's somehow in cahoots with JP Morgan for the purpose of screwing its workers would seem preposterous on its face. SEIU should really come up with better material if it wants to win over hearts and minds.